The Fall of Besor Tajj

Arc

Arc, and his twin brother Bolt, were born in the second age hundreds of years before VCY 0. He showed a natural skill for wizardry and received an apprenticeship at an early age.

One day, he and his brother celebrated a stirring victory by purchasing two rings from a shop in metropolis. These rings, seemingly ordinary, set Arc and his brother down the path of destiny which would guide them through the rise and fall of civilizations.

The effect of the ring was to make Arc believe he was the long dead fighter Edward, pitting him against his own brother, similarly duped into believing he was the Sorcerer Garland, arch rival of Edward, and servant of The Demon Prince Graz’zt. The rings were a small part of a complex plan Graz’zt drew up to overthrow the Pantheon.

While seeking to thwart Garland, Arc, still believing himself to be Edward, lost his left hand in combat, removing the ring from his person, and giving him his identity back. A metal hand was fashioned for Arc by a gnomish engineer. This metal hand is now considered a valuable artifact. Because of the time spent skirting mortality in his own body, Arc became the first and most powerful Blood Magus, today known as Red Mages.

Eventually Garland was defeated, and Arc successfully removed the ring from his brothers hand, though Bolt lost one of his eyes in the conflict, replacing it with a red glass eye to honor his brother.

As a result of the conflict, Arc’s world became a divine realm, with him ruling from the marble palace which was erected in the ruins of metropolis. One day, The Bard, long time companion of Arc, approached him at the throne. Little is known about what happened, but two things are certain.

A. There was a heated argument between Arc and the Bard.
B. As the argument came to a fevered pitch, the Bard performed a powerful spell which cast arc into billion of pieces that were scattered across the omniverse.

The pieces of Arc leaped, quite effortlessly, across the boundaries of the planes, and began slowly coalescing into larger wholes. Most have come to rest in the person who now uses Arc’s metal hand as a replacement for his own. Most of what few thousand remained were gathered by Bolt in massive human storage facility which was powered by crystal energy. Once the pieces were drawn, the people who held the pieces of arc were robbed of their identities, and traversed the planes spreading the only knowledge they understood, which was the blood magic ingrained into their genes.

It was only a short span of time before these Blood Maguses and their students formed the blood mage’s guild. Their emphasis on individuality has made them the primary opposition to the ordered McCarthyism of the Vanadelien Empire. The blood mages guild, which often resorts to schemes as low as petty vandalism to as high as massive acts of terrorism to spread it’s doctrine, is not centralized, and has no real “structure”. They are bound together by their blood magic, and the uniform understanding of their founder and master. Their scriptures, although wildly varied and at times contradictory, all begin with the same two clauses.